THR's exclusive excerpt from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright's new book reveals how the church came between Cruise and Kidman, leader David Miscavige's intense courtship of the star, Bill Clinton's advice to the actor on how to lobby Tony Blair and how Cruise once told Miscavige, "If f---ing Arnold can be governor, I could be president."

Threats, a baby taken away, punishment: Extraordinary details of the tortured relationship between the actor and his handler, Spanky Taylor, as told by Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright in his revelatory new history of the controversial religion, excerpted exclusively in THR.